In this post, I’m going to calculate the two points of intersection, a and b, you see in Figure 1.
The “lens” area c is known as a Vesica Piscis (or fish liver, in Latin). We can use a formula seen here to help us in our computations.
length of the radical axis h (this is the height of the lens) equals 1/2 the radius of our circle times the square root of 3
Plugging in the numbers…
h = 1.732 x 100 = 173.2px
173.2 / 2 = 86.6px
a = 200 – 86.6 = 113.4px (the value of the y coordinate)
thus point a is located at (250, 113.4)
which can be verified in Inkscape (see Figure 2, the blue oval).
It’s also possible to calculate the coordinates of point b.
Notice we have 2 right-sided triangles connected at point a in Figure 1:
50 (opposite side) in px units) / 100 (hypotenuse) = 0.5 radians
(-1) sine of 0.5 radians = ∠30°
We can now calculate the coordinates of point b, using the tan(θ) = Opposite / Adjacent formula.
Calculation:
Opposite side = 113.4 – 100 (y coordinate of rectangle’s top border) = 13.4 px
tan 30 degrees = X / 13.4
X = 0.577 * 13.4 = 7.7318
x-coordinate = 250 – 7.7318 = 242.2682
As you can see from the SVG code snippet below, this is the same value as the one I arrived through trial and error using Inkscape and a mouse pointer.
<line x1="242" y1="100" x2="358.2" y2="300" />
QED
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